Fake Injera Using Cabbage Germs

If you really like torturing yourself with spicy food (as I do), you need to learn about Ethiopian cuisine. I know almost nothing about it, but I managed to come up with a really good recipe for doro wat (chicken stew), which I stuck in my cookbook.

Incidentally, I have decided you’re better off cutting up a whole chicken than using chicken breast, which is possibly what I suggested in the book (don’t remember). Chicken breast will eventually tighten up and expel a lot of its moisture if you cook it too long. The fat it darker cuts makes them less problematic.

Anyway, I’m writing about this today because I have a way of making better pancakes.

Doro wat is usually served on unsweetened pancakes (injera) made from soured batter. The proper grain to use is a dark millet called teff. Personally, I think teff tastes the way cow manure smells, but that’s just me. You can make excellent pancakes using white flour.

Today I decided to see what I could do using sourdough starter. I have starter made from kimchi juice and white flour, and I added instant yeast and let the whole thing ferment until it died. It gets rubbery at first, but when you let it go all the way, it gets runny again, and it’s easier to handle. I guess it went two days, on a table with no refrigeration.

This morning I mixed about 75 grams of this stuff (milkshake consistency) with around 1 1/4 cups of bread flour. I also beat two egg whites until stiff, and I stirred them in. I added salt and–probably unnecessarily–about half a teaspoon of sugar. I also added a teaspoon of salt, although it would have been smarter to stir that in later.

I let the mixture ferment on the counter all day, stirring every once in a while to distribute the bacteria and yeast.

I am no sourdough expert, but from what I’ve read about the performance of starters made from airborn bacteria or commercial cultures, I think the kimchi bacteria may be unusually speedy. Whatever the case may be, by five p.m., the batter was pretty sour. I think 18 hours would have been better, but it was definitely sour. I stirred in a couple of tablespoons of cheap olive oil, and I fried myself some pancakes in a 14″ Teflon skillet.

When I was a kid, a French lady told me how to make crepes, and that’s what injera is, pretty much. You put a thin layer of batter on a hot pan, distribute it evenly, and wait for the top of the crepe to look dry. Then you flip it, and when sweat pops out on the top side, it’s done. You can brown it if you want, but when the little beads of moisture show up, it’s cooked through. This is how I cooked today’s faux injera.

The result was excellent. I didn’t even need baking powder. The pancakes were foamy and light, and they were tough enough to do what had to be done. When you eat Ethiopian food, you tear off chunks of injera and use them to grab and wrap up the other food, and the crepes have to have a little backbone. In retrospect, I think I might have been better off with half as much egg white, but it’s a tough call.

Try this yourself.

INGREDIENTS

75-100 grams milkshake-consistency sourdough starter made from kimchi bacteria and instant yeast
1 1/4 cups bread flour
2 egg whites, beaten stiff
1 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons oil or other fat

Mix the ingredients, except for the salt, and let sit for 12-18 hours at room temperature. When the mixture is really sour, add the salt and mix it in. Make crepes using a 14″ Teflon pan on medium-high heat. They should be around 3/16″ thick.

I also used sweet Hungarian paprika from Penzey’s, as well as fresh nutmeg, freshly ground cumin, and black cardamom, which is THE BOMB. I can’t say enough about this spice. Buy some and try it. I don’t know why people think green cardamom is better. The black stuff has a smoky flavor that seems to improve everything it touches.

I grind my spices in a dedicated electric coffee mill. I even ground cloves today, although I’ve found that ground cloves exude something that fogs plastic, so you have to wipe it out of your mill before it causes problems.

I ate my doro wat and injera with a glob of sour cream on the side. It’s a phenomenal combination, but you really have to jack up the habaneros when you use sour cream, because it kills the heat.

Anyway, this was super tasty. Try it.

Not the Kool-Aid

I had an interesting experience yesterday.

Background information: I am not happy with the “seven blessings” doctrine many churches are teaching now. Supposedly you give a big cash offering to your church on Pentecost, Passover, or Yom Kippur (“the Atonement”), and in return, God gives you seven blessings. This is supposed to come from Judaism, which required all believers to show up in Jerusalem three times a year and give their “very best offerings.”

Problem: Judaism only required men to show up.

Problem: there were no big cash offerings.

Problem: God didn’t promise anybody seven blessings on the Jewish holidays.

Problem: Christians are not under the Jewish law, and even if they were, it would be unlawful for them to show up among Jewish men during Jewish holidays and try to horn in on the observance.

The “Seven Blessings of Passover/Seven Blessings of Pentecost/Seven Blessings of the Atonement” fad is completely invalid. Near as I can tell, these doctrines were made up fairly recently by a pastor named Steve Munsey. They were never part of Judaism.

With all this in mind, I’ll write about my experience.

I went to Ayts Chayim Messianic Synagogue in Boca Raton, because I wanted to see my friends there and enjoy their Yom Kippur service. I got some friends from church to go. The service was amazing. First of all, there was no mention of big cash offerings. In fact, I don’t they mentioned money at all. Second, the rabbi taught about the real meaning of Yom Kippur, and he discussed appropriate teachings from Hebrews, linking Jesus to the most important Jewish holiday. Third, the Holy Spirit showed up like a thick cloud of peace, and we got to spend some wonderful time in his presence.

At one point, the rabbi said that people could present themselves as offerings if they wanted. They were encouraged to go to the front of the room. I went up there with the rest, and while I was there, I talked to God about the inadequacy of the things I do for him. I said any offering I might give him was tainted and corrupt, and I said I was offering myself, because it was “the best offering” I had.

Of course, when I heard that phrase in my mind, I thought of the Seven Blessings nonsense. “Very best offering” is what they tell you to bring. I wasn’t thinking about that when I went forward, but after the phrase appeared in my prayers, I could not miss the similarity.

I believe the Holy Spirit was underscoring the difference between dying charismatic churches and the synagogue. Many charismatic churches are losing God’s presence and favor. They’re wooing people by offering worldly garbage instead of the power and cleansing of the Holy Spirit. They have to rely on gimmicks and drives and so on. God isn’t blessing them, so they use worldly means to get what they want (usually high attendance and bigger collections), and then they claim God did it. Godly people who know better are growing frustrated, and they are leaving churches.

While the Holy Spirit was resting on us, I marveled at the difference between the synagogue and my church. We just don’t get that kind of response from God any more. I get it at when I’m alone, and sometimes it happens in my prayer group, but not in the services. I had forgotten what it was like to experience it in a service.

Now, naturally, I’m wondering if it’s time to change churches. Pastors like to say, “Grow where you’re planted,” in order to discourage people from moving around. They call people “church-hoppers.” In reality, the Bible doesn’t back them up. Over and over, great Biblical figures moved around. Abraham left. Noah left. Jacob left. Moses left. The Jews had to leave Israel for Babylon, and God told them they would suffer if they remained. Jesus left Israel for Egypt. Paul left Israel for Arabia. Lot left. How many examples do you want? Ruth left. Peter left. Timothy left. Jonah left.

“Grow where you’re planted” is something pastors say to keep people–and their money–from leaving. There is nothing godly about it. They ought to say, “GO where you’re planted.”

My friends are telling me I’m getting a lot done right where I am. They’re telling me I’m helping the church change. Maybe so. I would really miss the people. Maybe the answer is to start going to the synagogue twice a month, while cutting back at church.

It’s very refreshing to see that there are healthy houses of worship out there. No church is perfect, but some are very good.

If you don’t sense God in a very direct and palpable way in your church, you are missing out. His presence is something you need, and you should not hesitate to work hard to find it.

Paradise

A while back I aged a choice rib roast and froze it. I can’t help buying roasts when they’re on sale. It’s a thing.

I decided to cook it. A few days ago I put it in the fridge. As expected, it took eternity to thaw, so I put it on the dining room table for a few hours a day. To prevent death from bacteria, I salted the outside heavily and smeared it with pressed garlic.

Today I buttered it, stuck it on the Showtime oven spits, wrapped foil around it, and tied the foil in place with twine. I roasted it for quite some time. Ordinarily, I’d shoot for maybe 115 degrees, but I was also cooking for my dad, and he won’t eat beef until it’s carbonized, so I went to over 120. I removed the foil at the end to get some browning.

Geez, it was good. It was overcooked, sure, but it fell apart, and the taste was buttery and beefy and amazing. The fatty outer part (the part I love most) was full of the funkiness you get from dry-aging.

I would have baked it at 175 in the oven, but the oven was on the blink. I had to get it fixed today, and by the time it was fixed, it was too late to put the beef in.

I also baked a couple of small potatoes, not wanting to stuff myself silly at lunch. I baked them using my recipe. Rubbed the outsides with wet salt and put them on the rack at 450. They were magnificent.

I also made sourdough bread. I’ve been replenishing my starter stock, and I made some changes, so I wanted to do a test.

Earlier this week, I found that I only had one packet of frozen starter left, so I thawed it, mixed it with water, and used it in a big bowl of wet dough. I divided it in half, and I put instant yeast in one half. I wanted to see how well a mix of yeast and bacteria worked.

This is a starter I made a long time ago from kimchi juice. I don’t know what regular starter is like, but this stuff FLIES. Put it in dough tonight, and the dough will be sour tomorrow.

Last night I took about 1/4 pound of the yeast and bacteria starter, and I mixed it with three parts unleavened dough. I started by Cuisinarting the starter with dry flour, and then I added about 130 grams of water and blended it just until it was wet and mixed. I rolled it into a ball, and I put the ball on a sheet of floured nonstick foil. I put a big glass bowl over the foil, inverted. This way, when the dough rose, it was flat on the bottom, and it didn’t get big enough to be deformed by the walls of the bowl. The only purpose of the bowl was to keep humidity in.

Today when the dough looked sufficiently large, I slid the foil onto a stone at 450 degrees and baked the bread. I had a loaf of store sourdough on hand for comparison.

It turns out my sourdough is ten times better. It’s not as dry, and the flavor is much more intense. I love it. It has a tough crust, but I think that’s normal with sourdough.

I didn’t punch it down. Maybe I should have.

The crust didn’t have those cute little blisters everyone likes.

This is pretty satisfying. I don’t know of anyone else who uses cabbage bacteria to make bread. It has turned out to be easy to use, and it gives excellent results.

I didn’t have real horseradish sauce, so I stirred some prepared horseradish into heavy-duty mayonnaise. It was very good, and it only took a minute.

This is an eye-popping meal that doesn’t take much work. The bread is kind of a pain, but you don’t really need it.

Incidentally, I stirred some of the beef drippings into the garlic butter I used on the potato. It’s a little sick, but it works.

I can’t believe plain old choice beef can be this good. The only seasonings were salt, garlic, and butter. The horseradish wasn’t even needed. Next time I may skip it.

Next time your local grocer has rib roasts on sale, remember this. People will think you’re God’s gift to cooking, and it’s easier than making something stupid, like a casserole.

If you want to kill your guests with pleasure and heart disease, make this stuff and make brownies using my recipe. You can make them days in advance. Nuke the brownies before you serve them, and pile on whipped cream, vanilla ice cream, and hot fudge sauce, plus nuts. If you don’t have my brownie recipe, sorry. You should have bought my book. Now you pay the price.

Youtube Provides the Know-How

Yesterday I put up a post about academic lectures on Youtube. There is some incredible stuff available. It’s the real thing; just like being in a class.

I didn’t mention the coolest thing I found. The India Institute of Technology has 5411 lectures on Youtube. Don’t laugh. Indian math and science is no joke. Evidently, they want to make education available to the poor at no cost. The courses even have syllabi and reference material.

Last night I watched this lecture on Classical Mechanics, presented by Professor V. Balakrishnan.

I also found a ton of stuff from MIT. The impression I get is that MIT doesn’t seriously expect people to become educated; they don’t put everything they have online. But it’s still great material. One of the advantages is that it can build your confidence in your ability to compete at a top school.

I may be spending a lot of time on Youtube this year.

Get Your Degree in Comical Groin Injuries

I can’t believe it. Technology is actually turning out to be useful to me.

When I was a kid, people ignored each other for the TV. If you went to someone’s house, the family might possibly grunt when you walked in, but that was about all you could hope for, because they preferred the TV–which was always on–to you. Now things have changed. Instead of staring at the TV all day, we stare at the phone.

People use cell phones about as wisely as they use TV. When broadcast TV became a reality, we were told it would be great for education and the arts. We would learn from it. We would see great musicians. What a crock. We watched garbage like Gilligan’s Island all day. As if we were allergic to valuable real-life experiences. As if we resented God for making our lives so long and full of potential.

Now we stare at stupid Youtube videos. Skateboarders injuring their private parts. Cats turning on the washing machine. We also play really dumb video games. We listen to stolen music. And of course, we find time for porn.

The thing is, Internet-connected phones really do have the abilty to transform our lives, IF we can quit watching girls on trampolines and the Hampsterdance for a minute.

I guess those are old references.

I’ve been trying to fix up my math and physics skills. I have a degree in general physics, a math minor, and a year and a half of grad school, which means by now I should be an only-moderately-bad physicist and mathematician, but one still equipped with about 9,000 times the mathematical skill and knowledge of a sane human being. I let my skills evaporate, so now I’m building them back up. So I can make an important contribution to the world. By building loud tube guitar amps.

Today I was studying complex analysis, and I came across hyperbolas, and I didn’t remember too much about them, so I started looking for info. Lo and behold, I found a Youtube video by a guy whose handle is Khanacademy. His name is Khan, and his mission on earth is to make a good education available to anyone who has access to Youtube. And he is far from alone.

I started watching his videos, but I realized it was horribly inconvenient to be tethered to my comfy recliner while I watched, so I decided to check him out on the cell phone I bought on Sunday. I upgraded to an Iphone-y Samsung Droid phone, which means I have a screen big enough for video. I had promised myself never to use the Internet unless I needed to send an email and request an ambulance or a Coast Guard cutter, but having the resolve of a hamster on crystal meth, I caved instantly and tapped the Youtube icon.

Minutes later, I was slouched comfortably on a sofa with some spare earbuds plugged in, watching Mr. Khan tell me all about hyperbolas, after which I got the lowdown on ordinary differential equations. It was magnificent.

He has a very good lecturing style, which doesn’t hurt.

Suddenly the idea of forking out cash for data doesn’t seem so nutty, nor does the idea of watching postage-stamp-sized video. This thing can help me redeem the time I would ordinarily waste. You know. Those times when you’re doing something monotonous that doesn’t require serious attention. Like driving on the expressway.

Okay, that was a joke. I guess. How about standing in line at the Post Office? Waiting for your car to be washed? Sweating out one of Florida Power and Light’s daily power outages?

This is really neat. If someone like Khan put videos together with a decent book, he could have a bona fide college-quality course on the web. As it is, a textbook and a Schaum outline will get you through the woods.

I’ll tell you what. If you have a PC and a cell phone and you’re still ignorant, you have no excuse at all.

Get me my Holy Food Stamps

Now that God is occasionally succeeding in getting an lesson to penetrate the thick bones of my head, I feel like I should try to give Christians practical tips once in a while. I really disapprove of hollow sermons in which preachers use worthless slogans to get us all excited, without telling us what to do in order to please God and get his power working in our lives. There are a lot of simple things Christians can do to get the power flowing, and we don’t hear enough about them. Instead, preachers will say dumb things like, “Tell the person next to you, ‘The rest of your life is the BEST of your life,’” or, “I never met a negative person who did a positive thing.” Is that junk really supposed to be helpful? I don’t recall Elijah or Moses pumping out stale platitudes to save the Hebrews. Maybe they needed to go to a seminar in a hotel ballroom and get some real training.

Here’s something useful. Jesus told us to avoid vain repetition in our communications with God, but he never said to avoid repetition per se. In fact, the Psalms often speak favorably about “meditation,” which means repeating the word to yourself and considering it. Jesus told us to knock over and over until our prayers were answered. Sometimes repetition is very powerful.

Since I started praying in tongues a lot, I’ve had the spiritual gift of faith. This is not normal faith. With normal faith, you try REAL HARD to believe, and sometimes you succeed, and sometimes you don’t. With the gift of faith, the Holy Spirit shoots his own faith through you like water through a firehose. You can physically feel it. It’s like being caught in a tsunami. You feel like you’re going to be washed away if you don’t hang on.

There are things you can do to facilitate this experience. Obviously, you have to pray in tongues regularly. Without that, I have no answers for you. But that’s not all you need to do.

First, I’ve found that it’s good to pause after you ask for something and wait for the faith tsunami to show up. God wants to do things for us. Our own faith is nice for what it is, but to God, it’s a mud pie. It’s a crayon drawing for the front of his refrigerator. He wants us to use his faith, which is much better. So if you ask for something, then tell God you’re waiting for his faith, and hold on, very often the flood will follow in a few seconds.

Second, thank him repeatedly. Ask for something, wait for faith, and then thank God over and over for answering your prayer. You will find that it’s like holding up the roof of a tunnel so the faith can pass through. It really works. I can only guess at the reason. Faith is something that moves from God to us and back to God, and thanking him keeps the channel open. You can thank him a hundred times without stopping, if it works for you. It’s repetition, but it’s the farthest thing from vain.

Obviously, there is more to prayer than this. You shouldn’t get the idea that it’s all about asking for things. You need to spend time examining yourself and admitting your flaws to God with complete candor. You need to praise him. But if you want to get things done by supernatural means, thanking him will be a huge help.

And God does want us to ask for things. He is not busy. He does not resent it. He does not want you to get off your butt and fix things all by yourself, no matter what ill-informed preachers who used to be football coaches may tell you. He told Jesus to sit at his right hand while he made his enemies his footstool. He told the disciples to give no thought to financial concerns. God is generous, and he can’t be what he is unless he gives, all the time. How is God supposed to be generous without giving? He tells us to give, all through the Bible. Would he do that if he weren’t giving every second of every day? Is God a hypocrite? Does he heap heavy burdens on us, while he himself won’t touch them with his finger?

When you ask for help, you are admitting you’re a welfare case. We’re all receiving things we don’t deserve, just like the people who wait for government checks every week. We do a little of the work ourselves, but God wants to do most of it. If we could succeed without him, we would have reason to be proud, and we would have little reason to praise or acknowledge him. So he wants to help, even with little things.

You may think you’re capable of handling small jobs without help, but you’re not. I once broke my foot trying to walk across the garage. Don’t mistake God’s patience and grace for your own strength. You can’t even be sure you’ll get your next breath without help. Admit it.

Give this stuff a try and see what happens. It works for me.

Someone Should Build a Statue of This Steer

A few days back, I found an old 2″-thick prime rib eye in the freezer (2010 vintage), and I decided to have it for Sunday dinner. Tonight I thawed it out, salted it down, fried it in butter and salt, and served with garlic butter and a baked potato.

Seriously, this is not normal. Food should not be this good. I have gone beyond the “good cook” phase. I think I am entering the “warped evil food genius” category.

I have never had restaurant food this good. I have never had restaurant food within a letter grade of this good.

The outside of the steak was crunchy and salty, with all sorts of what foodies call “umami.” The inside…buttery-garlicky-agey-tasting fat poured off it every time I cut a bite. It had the perfect touch of aged-prime-rib funk. I overcooked it slightly–I swear my thermometer plays tricks on me–and it was still about three light years beyond the farthest point a Ruth’s Chris steak can see with the Hubbell Telescope. Or even the Hubble Telescope, which, unlike the Hubbell Telescope, exists.

Frigging middle-aged spelling.

What am I supposed to do with this? I can’t eat these things. Not regularly. I would die in a month and a half. I have no practical use for this. I feel like a guy who plays better than Horowitz, but only on the spinet in his aunt’s attic.

Wheeeee. I am still enjoying that steak. Just thinking back on it gives me a thrill. And the potato was even better, especially when daubed in the beef juice and butter.

Surely–SURELY–God has a purpose in this. It makes no sense otherwise.

Time to call Mike and make him jealous.

These are a Few of my Favorite Things

People have complained that I don’t post recipes any more. See what you think of this one. I just tried it. I thought it would just be tolerable, but it was excellent.

INGREDIENTS
1 pork tenderloin (3/4 pound)
3 thin slices bacon
1/2 cup (packed measure) dried Granny Smith or other tart apples
Korbel brandy
1 powdered chipotle pepper
sorghum syrup or molasses
4 cloves fresh garlic
salt
pepper
butter

Open the tenderloin up so you can stuff it. You can butterfly it or spiral-cut it into a flat sheet. Salt and pepper both sides. Drizzle about a tablespoon of sorghum on it. Scatter the chipotle on it.

Chop up the apples and soak them with brandy. Fry the bacon until browned but not crunchy. Remove the bacon and fry the apples in the grease, plus a couple of teaspoons of butter. When the apples start to get done, throw in the garlic (sliced). fry until it’s cooked but not very brown. Toss in the bacon (chopped) and fry to warm it up.

Pile the fried stuff on the pork and wrap it up with twine. Salt and pepper the outside. Dump it in a covered Pyrex dish. Bake at 300 for about one hour. Remove the lid, baste with the drippings, and drizzle a little sorghum on top. Remove most of the drippings. Bake until it browns. Make sure you got all the pan grease in there.

Reduce the drippings until you like the flavor. Remove the twine from the pork and slice it across the long axis.

Serve with the drippings.

This could be made way better, but I was only cooking what I had lying around the house.

I don’t really like tenderloin. Today’s pigs are skinny and dry, and tenderloin is dry to begin with, and it’s dark. You could make a much tastier version with a better cut, like a shoulder roast. You could also brine the tenderloin. Really, though, it’s crap. Pigs have a tenderloin, and then they have those big loin things center-cut chops come from. I don’t know the first thing about pig anatomy, but I know the big light-colored loins taste better.

You could also work stuffing into it, which would be insanely good. And it would be good to top it with some onions sauteed at the end of the baking cycle. I wonder what dried peaches would be like.

Brown raisins would have been good in there. Some extra acidity could be a plus. I considered adding a touch of lime juice. I think a little orange juice mixed with lime juice might work.

Maybe you could use a boned duck! Oh, man!

Here’s what I did for a side:

INGREDIENTS
6 ounces (best guess) red and yellow peppers
8 ounces broccoli florets
2 cloves fresh garlic
salt
pepper
cheap olive oil (“for sauteeing and grilling”)

Heat a cast iron skillet on medium-high and add 2 ounces oil. Salt and pepper the vegetables. Add the vegetables and fry for maybe 20 minutes, stirring occasionally. You want a little browning here and there. Toward the end, throw in the garlic and keep frying until it’s cooked but not brown and bitter.

This sounds pretty dull, but it was excellent. I wouldn’t add a thing to it. Well, I might conceivably sneak a tiny amount of butter into the finished product.

Never use extra-virgin olive oil, except in salad. It costs a lot, and it tends to smell and taste bad when it gets too hot. I do not understand these people who say “EVOO” all the time and talk about extra-virgin oil like it’s God’s gift to the culinary arts. I rarely use it for anything. I used to use it, and it ruined my food. It’s swell on salad, or in applications where it doesn’t get too hot, but that’s about it. You really want to keep it away from pizza. Trust me on this.

Cheap olive oil is a phenomenal tool. It lends a buttery taste to food. It has a high flash point. It doesn’t have the fish stink of canola. It has versatility because it has almost no flavor. You can get a gallon for something like ten bucks. I don’t know why no one talks about it.

Okay, I posted a recipe. I’m done.

I Know Where my Shoes Are

I joined a church. I met the musicians who play there. I started playing guitar again. They said I should build tube amps, because I had a physics degree and could understand the circuits.

I started building amps. Then I decided I needed to brush up on electronics and math so I would really know what I was doing.

A few weeks back I started studying electronics, and that got me moving toward math. I dug out some math books. Now I’m studying complex variables. I’m waiting for the arrival of outlines on advanced calculus and vector analysis.

Here’s the interesting thing. I think this work is improving my prayer life.

My ability to concentrate has diminished over the years. It’s irritating. It affects my short-term memory; you tend to forget things if you aren’t concentrating when you learn them. It also makes me less intelligent. You can’t think well if you can’t concentrate.

When you pray, you need to be conscious of the reality–the realness–of God. Jesus told us we would receive the answers to our prayers if, while praying, we believed we would receive. You can’t have a powerful belief that you will receive, if God’s realness is a wavering concept that flickers in an out of your consciousness.

Last night I found that the sensation of God’s realness was stronger and more consistent. I believe it’s because my concentration is getting better.

I was about thirty when I decided to get a physics degree. I had failed math in high school, so I was not all that well prepared. Somehow I had forgotten my bad math history; I remembered it after my first college calculus test!

I guess God propelled me, because I caught up on high school math and learned first-semester calculus during a single term. And that put me on the path to my degree, which meant I would have to work about five times as much as a normal college student. Physics is incredibly hard. It’s much harder than pure math. I used to knock my math homework off very quickly, and I’m talking about advanced subjects like multivariable calculus and complex analysis, but physics took something like four times as long.

When I first started my studies, I could only do physics for a short time before I needed a break. My mind ran out of whatever it is that allows you to think effectively about math, and I had to recharge. By the time I dropped out of grad school, I could do physics until three in the morning and still think reasonably well. During these years, my mind changed. I developed abilities I had not had at the beginning.

I think this is what’s happening to me now. I am thinking better, and I am thinking well for longer periods.

I tend to get caught up in the supernatural things God does. For example, I know prayer in tongues will build faith and the ability to do miraculous things. But I have to remember that the things we do in the physical realm are not a total waste of time. God can cure an infection directly, but he can also send you to a doctor who will know which antibiotic to use. Maybe God is using the math to help me stay in touch with him.

I think it’s useful to write about this, because the natural tendency of the aging human brain is to deteriorate. We poison ourselves with TV and idleness, and we do things that damage our brains, and we fall apart. I have always found that my mind can be changed by what I do with it. I know there are other people out there who are getting nervous because they are starting to get lost or forget what they’re supposed to be doing. Maybe this blog entry will help them. And if you’re a believer, maybe it will help you get in touch with God.

I’ve noticed that it’s not unusual for physicists to remain sharp long after they should have become addled by age. Hans Bethe was relevant even in his 80s. Something to think about, the next time you decide to watch Dancing With the Stars when you could be firing up Rosetta Stone or doing sudoku.

The nice thing about the stuff I’m doing is that it’s useful. It’s not exercise with no non-therapeutic value. It’s not sudoku, which is useless in and of itself and which teaches skills that serve no purpose other than sudoku. Advanced math helps you understand the world. If I can get a grip on math and electronics, I’ll be able to do some pretty neat things.

I suspect that math is unique in its ability to restore the brain. I’ve studied music, and it doesn’t do much. I read a lot, and I write a lot, and those things don’t help. In fact, I think my vocabulary is a lot smaller than it was in the past. Sometimes I misspell words now. That was almost unthinkable in the 90s.

Here’s what I suspect. I think mathematical study may serve as a brain improver that helps in other areas of thought, but I think other types of mental exercise don’t carry this benefit.

I’ve read the claims that Mozart makes people smart. I’m not sure, but I think that theory was debunked. I don’t know if it’s true, generally, but music didn’t do a thing for me. Math, I can guarantee.

The problem is that people would rather listen to music than solve simultaneous equations. Either your brain came equipped with puzzle drive or it didn’t. I suspect that God has increased my interest in math through supernatural means. These days I can’t wait to sit down with a pencil and a Schaum outline. I feel like drawn to it; I look forwad to it when I’m doing other things.

I’m not one of these people who think earthly life is what it’s all about. I am not going to get sheep placenta injections and hire plastic surgeons to turn me into a grotesque caricature of a young person, just so I can hold onto this flawed existence. I think that’s pathetic. But I am not in a hurry to shop for diapers. The Bible mentions people who saw well and thought well in their old age. There is some evidence that people who spend a lot of time in God’s presence may live unusually long, healthy lives. Maybe I can be like them.

Here’s some interesting trivia. In the first half of the last century, there was a group of people in Africa known as “the shining ones.” They believed they had a special closeness with the Holy Spirit. They lived in fear of driving him away (“grieving” him). It is said that a number of these people lived to be well over a hundred. Is it true? I don’t know. But I work to get into God’s presence, and I feel very youthful. I know this will sound crazy, but I could swear my hair is thicker than it was ten years ago. Sometimes I’m startled by my own appearance in the mirror. Sometimes my face seems strangely smooth and appears to have a weird radiance to it. I am definitely aging, but in some ways I seem to improve.

I have heard that my great-grandmother’s face used to shine after she spent time alone, praying in tongues. I never knew her. I can’t tell you whether it’s true.

Incidentally, this is an answer to prayer. I prayed for God to fix my memory and concentration, and I felt powerful rushes of faith, telling me it would happen.

Maybe someone who reads this will put it to use. I hope someday I find out it helped someone who was tired of walking from one room to another and then wondering what he was doing there.

How Good Can it Get?

I wrote a long piece about the crazy “Seven Blessings of Passover/Pentecost/Atonement” doctrine that is sweeping charismatic churches, but something told me to keep it to myself for now. So instead I’m writing about PIZZA.

My pizza gets better and better and BETTER. Over and over, I find myself saying, “This is the best pizza I’ve ever had.” Every time it happens, I think it can’t get significantly better, but I’m always wrong. I’m positive God gives me food ideas. There is no other way to explain it. If the food were merely great, I could say it was me, but it’s so good it’s beyond explanation. I can’t do that.

A while back I made sourdough starter and froze portions of it in foil. Last night I thawed one out. I would say I got about 100 grams of usable stuff from it. I mixed it with my regular dough recipe, with the yeast reduced by two-thirds, and I stuck it in the fridge overnight. This morning I let it warm up, formed it into a crust, and let it rise all day.

I got Boar’s Head whole-milk mozzarella from the grocery deli counter because I was out of delicious Costco mozzarella, and I used Bel Gioioso provolone. Ordinarily I use frozen cheese, and it’s cheap and excellent, but freezing reduces the quality a little, so it’s not perfect. And deli-counter mozzarella is the only decent substitute I’ve found for Costco cheese.

I topped the pie with quartered Hormel pepperoni slices. I am not a pepperoni fan, because it makes pizzas sour, greasy, too spicy, and orange, but for some reason it WORKS with my recipes. Like you would not believe. So I cut 30 slices in quarters and used them.

I generally use very fresh dough, because it’s fast and convenient. The resulting crust is way better than anything you can buy around here, so I’m satisfied with it for most purposes. But sourdough culture improves the texture of dough, and I suspect letting dough sit overnight is also beneficial. I don’t have the patience to use pure sourdough for an ordinary meal, so I made the little starter packets. You get a lot of the improvements, and it’s easy.

Anyway, I made my usual sauce and put it on top of layers of provolone and mozzarella, and I baked it in the usual way. I somehow ended up with about one and a half times the right amount of pepper in the dough, and that worried me, but it actually made the pizza better. The crust was chewier, and the added pepper really brought out the fruity flavor of the sauce. The aftertaste was almost like cherry pie.

That deli cheese melts much more smoothly than anything frozen. It spread out so well some of it went off the edge of the pie. That’s a plus, though, because you get little bits of crunchy cheese at the edges.

Geez, it was good. I’m still reliving it in my mind.

What is the purpose of this? It’s too good not to have a purpose. If I couldn’t make my own pizza, and I knew of a shop that used this recipe, I’d stand in line to eat there.

We all Voted, and We Decided “God” was Wrong

It amazes me how many so-called “Christians” do not believe in prophecy or God’s promises.

I just read that Anglican, Orthodox, Catholic, and Lutheran priests in Israel are endorsing the “Palestinian” state, with the 1967 borders and Jerusalem as the capital.

The area that God promised–PROMISED–Abraham and his descendants is not contained within the 1967 borders. In fact, it’s much bigger than the current borders. The 1967 borders amount to a holding area to house the Jews until they can be exterminated. These borders are indefensible. They cut the country in half. What we have right now is a gigantic cession by the Jews. To ask more is unconscionable. Giving Palestinians their own nation within the tiny area currently recognized as Israel is like parachuting armed jihadis onto the deck of the MS St. Louis.

Is it any wonder Jews don’t trust Christians? We stab them in the back every chance we get. The idea that Jews and Christians will eventually reach a state of peaceful agreement is ludicrous. SOME Christians support Israel and will never let it down. The majority will always be tools of the enemy.

I suppose it makes no sense to speak of the Jewish mistrust of Christians in a negative way. It’s perfectly healthy. It shows that Jews aren’t crazy. Trusting us…that would prove they weren’t thinking clearly.

I don’t understand what the old denominations believe. It’s clear they don’t believe in God’s promise to Abraham. They see the Jews as oppressors and land thieves.

I think it all boils down to a fundamental belief that God is not real. They honor him and talk about how great he is, but aren’t they doing it with a wink? Increasingly, God is seen as mythical figure based in ancient superstition, who somehow (in spite of having an existence based on lies) managed to hand down a useful moral code which can be summed up in the two words “Be nice.” People think there are a lot of good things about the teachings of Jesus, but you have to understand: he was part of a primitive, patriarchal culture. Now we know things Jesus did not know. He’s not coming back, and he wasn’t God (they say in their hearts), and some of the stuff he told us has to be discarded.

If you believe God is alive, and that he is truthful and faithful, you have to believe Israel (Greater Israel, not the little bit the Jews possess now) belongs to the Jews. Even if you don’t believe God is alive, it’s impossible for a moral person to oppose Israel’s reasonable efforts to protect its existence, and it’s equally impossible to overlook the horrendous moral failings of Israel’s adversaries. Israel is all the Jews have, and their enemies are vicious and untrustworthy. There is no way they can give up. They are not fighting for wealth or domination. They are fighting for the right to live.

A long time ago, Satan managed to cut man off from the Holy Spirit. Jesus died partly so we could be inseminated with the Holy Spirit and wield his power, and we get that power through the charismatic gifts. Satan convinced us we had to earn God’s favor and his power, and tongues died out. When the Holy Spirit left us, we also lost revelation. We lost the ability to perceive God’s thoughts. As a result, we believe all sorts of stupid things, and the Palestine lie is one of them.

The clerics who are attacking Israel probably have no idea what God is like. They have probably never heard his voice. They have degrees. They’ve read books. They’ve learned ritual. Meanwhile, they’ve never met the subject of their studies. If they knew him, he would shape them. Because they do not, they have decided to shape him.

It’s fine to study flowers and learn about the chemistry and genetics that underlie their workings. It’s fine to learn about the soils they prefer and their natural enemies and their climatic needs. But these things can never replace the experience of walking outside and seeing a flower for yourself. The Holy Spirit permits us to know God personally. The books and rituals don’t do that. In fact, being based in fantasy, they tend to prevent us from knowing him.

I have often said that it’s better to know God than to know about God.

I know God. I don’t know him perfectly, and I let him down all the time, but I know him. Jesus himself entered a room where I was trying to sleep. He entered a car I was driving. I encounter the Holy Spirit every day. I learn from him. Sometimes I physically feel him doing things to my body. He has healed me a number of times. He has shown me spirits. He has changed my moods. He answers prayer after prayer. He explains the Bible. And here is one thing he has made clear: I am to be a friend of the Jews. So I don’t care what a blind man with a fancy costume tells me. God is right. Guesses made by frail human beings don’t matter to me.

Israel is going to prevail. I don’t care how many bombs the Iranians build. I don’t care how many benighted people march in the street chanting slogans. God will judge those who divide the land, and I am not going to be their ally.

The Vessels of the Temple are not Man’s Spittoons

Last night I had some fun. My chef friends Liz and Donna volunteered to prepare food for a fundraiser at my church, and they asked me to help, so I got to work in the big commercial kitchen Donna manages. There were about seven of us, all told.

I didn’t do anything all that interesting. I followed other people’s recipes. I chopped herbs and made herbed cream cheese spread, and then I grilled a whole bunch of chicken breasts and sliced them into hors d’oeuvre portions. I also got to use a deep fryer for the first time in my life. We have one at church, but I never fooled with it. Last night I used it to make piles of fried plantain slices.

This kitchen uses knives provided by a service. They come and pick up the knives every week, and they replace them with sharp ones. I didn’t bring any of my own knives, so I grabbed a 10″ chef’s knife off the wall and went to work on the herbs. I was very impressed. It took an edge very quickly, and it made short work of the herbs, much as a Chinese cleaver would.

I decided to check the brand and look into it further. The name is “Mundial.” It’s a European company, but they manufacture in Brazil to keep prices low. They’re not fancy. The blades are thin and somewhat flexible, and they have plastic NSF handles. But they seem to work extremely well.

Anyone familiar with this blog knows I have had bad experiences with expensive Japanese knives. They chip easily, they can’t be put in a dishwasher, and they cost a fortune. I think they’re a complete waste of money. My favorite chef’s knife is a $22 Forschner, and my favorite all-around knife is a carbon-steel Chinese cleaver that ran me $9. I love a good cheap knife.

I found the Mundials on Amazon, and I decided to try a cleaver, a santoku, and a 14″ slicer. I’m hoping the cleaver will work as well as my Chinese job, with the added convenience of stainless. We’ll see.

I don’t know if the fundraiser will work. I got an invitation, but I’m not going. I will make a total of four trips to or for church this week. I felt like that was plenty. On the way to the commercial kitchen, I got a text asking me to start teaching a class in a discipleship program. I’d love to do it, but I can’t do everything.

The church has a gigantic mortgage, and I don’t think there is any possibility that we will be able to pay it off, so the fundraiser doesn’t seem like a good idea. I think we would be better off moving to a building we can afford. Most people who attend the church are poor or middle class, and the size of the congregation (and therefore the offerings) is limited by the size of the sanctuary. It’s very obvious that this is not a good situation.

I don’t think God is going to swoop in and save the day, because we don’t take care of the things he has already given us. We’re doing many, many things badly instead of doing the important things well.

We’re also having problems because we attract the wrong kind of people. We’re using secular music and prizes and all sorts of other tricks to get people to show up. The problem with this is that we get people who want to party, while we offend serious Christians. Over and over, people come to me complaining. They hate the loud music. They find the rap beats offensive. I can’t defend these things. I just tell them not to worry about the services, because they can get what they need in the prayer groups.

We have something like 2,000 young people coming to the youth services every week, but an awful lot of them come to socialize, not to meet God. Let’s face it. They come to get laid. Kids have always used churches as cheap substitutes for clubs, and we are helping them by making our church as much like a club as possible.

Some people believe that anything that gets people to come to church is a good idea. They say, “It’s all about souls.” That’s wrong. The problem with that kind of thinking is that it grows a church full of weak people who will eventually fail. A human being is like a seed in dry soil. When you receive salvation, you’re like a seed that has sprouted. If you don’t get the right teaching after you sprout, you rot. You can’t grow a healthy church with stunted Christians who never grow up.

I believe we’re trading strong future souls for the weak ones we’re getting now. These people won’t have power in their lives. They won’t be blessed. They won’t have anything going on that will make other people want what they have, so they will be very poor evangelists. If we taught people to live for God and walk by faith, and if we made them understand that they are not to conform to the world, great things would happen to them, and down the road, they would be so blessed the unsaved would find their testimony compelling.

We worry too much about pleasing men. We never hear anything about the anti-Christian things our President does, because so many people in the church think he’s great. We have given special treatment to rappers, and I don’t mean the Christian kind. We hear a lot about the great things God will do for us, but we don’t hear much about getting in touch with him personally and submitting to him, and we don’t hear much about his angry side. God kills people. God gives people cancer. Sin and iniquity are still very dangerous. We don’t talk much about that. That puts the people in danger.

What can you do? No church is perfect. Some churches let the mob lead. Others reject the Holy Spirit. Every church has a weakness. At least our people acknowledge the Holy Spirit’s existence. He still has a foothold.

I would like to move north and find a church where I would not be faced with the amazing paradox of liberal Christians. How anyone can claim to serve God while voting for enemies of Israel, the church, God-given sex roles and the unborn is beyond me. People who know God well and study his ways inevitably become conservative, because the left is doing everything it can to oppose God. I never imagined I would see a charismatic church were so many people preach one way and vote another.

I know many wonderful people at my church, and I would really miss them if I left, but I know there will eventually come a point where the church changes or I move on.

God is still doing powerful things in my prayer group. More people are praying in tongues and learning about the Holy Spirit. The other day someone who has been heavily into carnal effort came to me and started talking about the way prayer in tongues was changing his life. This is someone who has become extremely intolerant of any kind of dissent, so it surprised me to see him talking this way. He hasn’t been learning this in the sermons, I guarantee you.

My friends are I are seeing more and more blessings in our lives. That will continue. We are getting more revelation. We are getting help with our character flaws. God is bringing people to us and slowly increasing our numbers. Maybe a time will come when there are enough of us to draw attention to God’s power, so others will turn away from baby food and try what we’re having.

The other night I felt God’s presence more strongly than I have in twenty years. I could physically feel the Holy Spirit moving in my body. For a time I felt a strange pressure in my head, and it reminded me of a tree root growing in a rock and splitting it. For a long time, I’ve been saying that the Holy Spirit is the living water that feeds the mustard tree within each of us, which is the kingdom of God. I’ve said it grows and splits the rock and changes us from inside. When I felt it inside me this week it struck me as funny. I felt that God was reminding me that my head is one of the hardest rocks there is.

What is happening to us is as real as dirt. I guess that means persecution is coming. Oh, well. I’ve started keeping a diary of revelations that come to me, and here is the latest thing I felt God was saying to me: “Satan isn’t that tough.” It doesn’t mean Satan is weak or stupid, or that we don’t have to give him the same respect we would give loaded guns or rattlesnakes. It just means he isn’t as hard to beat as you might think, and that you should expect to win. It should not surprise you. He has made himself seem bigger than he is, but he’s just a mortal spirit. He is very small compared to our God. He has an end, and we don’t.

I have to order parts for my next tube amp now. Hope this material is useful to someone.

Too Good for This Earth

Here are some cell phone photos of yesterday’s lunch extravaganza. It’s amazing what you can do when God is in control. Best pizza I’ve ever had, and that’s saying a lot.

The big orange thing is a mango cheesecake, made with homegrown mangoes. The little round things are obviously pineapple upside-down cakes made with tons of butter. The pizzas…are pizzas. Too bad we didn’t get a shot of the Hawaiian we made.

Zechariah 4:6

Samson yanked the gates of Gaza out of the ground and carried them up a hill. He beat a thousand idiots to death with the jawbone of an ass. How did he do these cool things? Easy. The Spirit of God rested on him.

In the movies, Samson is always a big steroid addict with no neck. In real life, Samson was probably about five two, with a thirty-inch chest and bandy legs. Seriously, why would God pick Victor Mature? When it comes to pulling city gates out of the ground, Victor Mature is no better than Burgess Meredith. The gates aren’t going anywhere without something extra. I think God picked someone who would make the Holy Spirit look good, so I really doubt Samson looked like Lou Ferrigno.

Why bring this up? Today I returned to my church’s cafe and made pizza and garlic rolls, and I brought two cheesecakes. My friend Liz brought individual pineapple upside-down cakes plus salad and chocolate-dipped strawberries. We were cooking for the pastor from the biggest AG church in the US. He works in a city known for pizza. And my pastor said we “blew his mind.” So you could say we did a good job.

In the past we were limited to pepperoni pizza and cheese pizza. Today I decided to open up the throttle. We made cheese, pepperoni, sausage, pizza with multiple toppings, and Hawaiian. I arrived at church at 8:15. We didn’t serve until 11:45. I didn’t eat until after 2:00. When I finally got to try the pizza, my skull nearly exploded. A shock wave of ecstasy shot up to the ceiling and rippled across the acoustic tiles. It was stunningly good. I have never had pizza like that.

The cheesecake…I made it with homegrown mangoes, of a cultivar I chose for its deliciosity. These things taste like ice cream, right off the tree. After I got home, a buddy texted me and said, “That mango cheesecake is probably the best thing I’ve ever eaten!!”

The pineapple cakes were perfect. She made them with real butter and lots of whatever that sauce is that gives pineapple upside-down cake its heft. Right on target. Could not have been better.

I don’t think I can cook as well as I cooked today. In fact, I didn’t do all the cooking. I got two young people, Travis and Eboni, to show up and help, and once I showed them what to do, they cranked it out like General Motors. Okay, bad analogy. Like Ford. Or some other company that actually functions well without socialist handouts.

We had a shortage of pizza pans, so we didn’t really have the equipment to keep pizza crusts rising fast enough to meet demand. Somehow, though, we ended up with three extra pizzas and some extra dough portions that had to be thrown out. I don’t know what happened, because I was too busy to watch.

It seems like things went much better than they should have.

I think it’s because of the Holy Spirit counterrevolution that has been going on among my friends. We commit to pray in tongues a lot, and we try to listen to the Holy Spirit. Things just plain go well for us. Life goes together like a dovetail drawer. So I feel like Samson. I shouldn’t be able to do the things I do.

We got to do the things I wanted to do when I tried to start this ministry last year. I made everyone pray in the Spirit for ten minutes, with worship music, as soon as we were able to get a moment. In my opinion, that is what assured our success, and it made an impression on my crew, whom I have been trying to reach for quite a while.

I don’t know if we’ll ever do it again, but it was a blast. I am so grateful. I know I’m not the reason it worked.

If you want what I have, do what I do. That’s all it takes. It’s not genetics. It’s not random chance. It will work for you just like it works for me. In many instances, better.

Wonder what great things will happen during the rest of the week.

Still Standing

As always, too much is going on to write about.

Some of you know I used to cook at my church. I made everything from scratch. I cooked pizza and garlic rolls, cheesecake, pies, brownies, and all sorts of other stuff. But some people there treated me so badly and decreased my duties so much, I realized it was wrong to reward them and waste my time by continuing to work there.

Since then, the cafe has not done well. Can’t tell you everything. It’s closed these days, except for a few hours on the weekends. Everyone who gave me a hard time and treated me disrespectfully is gone. None of them have ever apologized or admitted wrongdoing.

Last week, the pastor called and asked for a “huge favor.” He knows a pastor from a gigantic church in another city. That city is known for pizza. The other pastor sent my church four frozen pizzas from a well-known pizzeria. They sat in the freezer for a long time. When the other pastor scheduled a visit, our staff cooked the pizzas and ate them, so they would be able to say something about them when our guest arrived.

Our pastor thought it would be fun to make pizza for him, in our own kitchen. So tomorrow I cook for about 35 people.

I’m making Sicilian pizza and garlic rolls, plus two mango cheesecakes. One cheesecake is strictly for my team; the guests don’t get any. We’re also having desserts and pineapple upside-down cake.

I have helpers.

I got driven out of the cafe just as I was getting moving on a ministry there. A number of young people wanted to work with me, and I was going to show them how to cook. We were also going to ground everything in prayer. God provided me with a friend who is a successful chef, and she was going to help. I was doing all this at the urging of people above me in the volunteer structure and staff.

After I was asked to cook this big meal, I started looking for people to assist. Who showed up? You can guess. My chef friend was on board in about ten minutes, and she volunteered to leave work and bring salad and desserts. I also got the two young people who had been most interested in learning to cook.

On Saturday we cleaned the kitchen until it was safe to use, which was a horrible chore, and we made a pizza and some rolls. We had a fantastic time. Only the kids showed up. They did an excellent job, and they’re coming back tomorrow morning to help again.

The pizza we made was astounding. It was just pepperoni pizza, but it was better than anything I’ve had in a restaurant. And we’ll do even better tomorrow.

Right now I have cream cheese warming up for two cakes. I’m also going to prepare topping ingredients for the pizzas. I may also make a coconut flan.

I don’t know where this is going. The church is faring poorly, so I don’t know if the cafe will exist in six months. Nonetheless, it’s very rewarding to be able to accomplish the most important parts of the job. I’ll be able to improve my relationship with the people who are helping, and we will draw closer to God. And it’s nice to be vindicated, without lifting a finger to defend myself or harm those who mistreated me.

It’s not about vengeance or seeing obnoxious, carnal people suffer. It’s about God, being faithful and powerful to establish the things he begins.

Needless to say, some of the tools I got for the cafe have been lost, stolen, or destroyed. Here’s a great lesson for Christians: never give your church anything, unless you know they’ll make good use of it. The pizza stones that used to be in the cafe are gone, so I brought one from home, and today I bought a second one. Am I leaving them at church when I’m done? Forget it. I’m not a moron. I’ll have one stone to use, and I’ll have a spare. If the church needs pizza, I’ll throw them in the truck and take them for a visit.

It’s funny how things are working out. Someone else ended up paying for the cheese for the pizzas. When I went to Gordon Food Service to get flour, they only had one bag of the kind I wanted, and it had a tiny hole in it. A cute girl came over, put tape over the hole, and marked the bag down 50%. Today when I went to get the second stone, the store had stopped stocking them. I told God I was not going to any more stores. On the way out, I saw the last stone on a clearance rack.

I haven’t done much to make this work. People and things are coming to me. That’s how it should be. I would just mess it up, if I got in there in the flesh and started mud-wrestling. If the whole event falls through, it’s not my concern. God started it. If he wants it to happen, he’ll finish it.

In other news, my buddy Mike is divorced now. He met a nice lady, and they’re attending a charismatic church. Her dad owns a dog track that has legislated out of business. The dog track contains a fully equipped pizzeria. She also owns a storefront that needs a business. Mike is planning to open a place that sells pizza, rolls, and my cheesecake. How about that? He says I have to go up and help get it started.

I hope things go well tomorrow. I am already looking forward to resting on Wednesday.

Wild Week

I always ask God to do impressive things so I will have a compelling testimony, and then he does it, and I end up with too much to write about.

I guess there are worse types of frustration I could be dealing with.

Week or two back, I heard from the wife of a blogging friend. Her son was sort of becalmed in life, and he wanted to get in touch with God. It “happened” to be the week my church was putting on a big play and having a 5 a.m. men’s meeting. I took him to the play, he met people who reached out to him, and he decided he wanted to go to the meeting. He also wanted to go to church on Sunday. When I texted his stepdad on Sunday to get him moving, the stepdad “happened” to misunderstand, and he ended up sending the young man AND his mother. Now they’re both going to church, and the young man is part of my prayer group, and he’s a church volunteer.

On that Sunday, I was working security, and someone radioed to tell me a guy was asking to see the pastor and claiming to be a friend of his. I had them send him to me. He turned out to be a Messianic Jew from Israel. His name is Eliron. Just “happened” to be. I lived in Israel for four months. I’ve been around Jewish people all my life. I have connections with other Messianics. And this guy “happened” to get sent to me.

There’s more to it. He knows the pastor’s sister and brother-in-law. He met them in Israel, at a Sukkot celebration. This happened while I was celebrating Sukkot with the Messianics in Boca Raton. Coincidence! He moved to Miami, and for financial reasons, he had to live with his Orthodox dad. One day he was talking to the pastor’s sister, and he told her where he lived. She told him he just “happened” to be five minutes from my church. Yeah, okay. Nothing strange about THAT.

He came to me at a time when I “happened” to be trying to set up a gun range trip with the Messianics. We had been hoping to do it for months. It came together the same week he showed up.

At church, I told him to get my contact info from the pastor so we could hook up. Naturally, it turned out that the pastor didn’t really know him, and he didn’t give him my number. But we “happened” to have a volunteer meeting last week, and at that meeting, a guy who knows a guy who knows Eliron showed up and “happened” to hear me say I was trying to locate Eliron. Fifteen minutes later, I had a text containing Eliron’s number.

We needed to work out a plan for lunch in Boca. I “happened” to invite two friends who are professional chefs. They took care of everything, free of charge. I didn’t have to lift a finger.

We got to Boca and went to the shabbat service, and the speaker “happened” to be Dan Juster, who is practically the Messianic Pope. He mentioned one of his friends by name. “Happens” to be a personal acquaintance of Eliron’s.

We went to lunch after the service, and we had so much fun, we never made it to the gun range. Now we have an excuse to go back.

When we were leaving the service, a lady waved at Eliron in the parking lot, and they started talking. She was an Israeli Messianic. Just “happened” to be there. They talked and exchanged info, so now he has another good contact. I thought this was important, so I shut the truck down and waited. A lady I “happened” to sit in front of in the service came up, asked me my name, and started telling me things she believed God had shown her about me and his plans for me. We invited her to my church, which is about 80% Haitian. “Coincidentally,” it turned out she was from Haiti. So she’s going to come and visit.

Now a former Alvin Ailey dancer at my church is talking about taking a team up to the synagogue, and people from the synagogue want to visit. I don’t know if our church’s leadership will get involved, but it will happen.

I’m hoping to go back to Boca this weekend or next weekend, with more people.

Today I’m enjoying my personal “shabbat.” Life is always nuts on the weekend, so on Monday I decelerate.

I’d like to say I’ll keep posting about all the stuff God does in my life, but the truth is, I’ll be lucky to get 10% of it written.

Flash Mobs: the Labor Unions of Crime

I keep thinking about the flash mob crime phenomenon.

As I’ve noted, ancient texts tell us mob crime was a characteristic of Sodom and Gomorrah, and it was one reason for their destruction. Jesus said he would return in times like the days of Lot. Well, here we are.

Flash mobs are the labor unions of crime. One criminal can’t do all that much. A thousand criminals can do anything they want. They can plunder a neighborhood. They can take a department store or a sporting event hostage and then demand ransom and immunity. We’ll do anything they want, once they start flexing their muscle.

Think about the potential for sex crime. Imagine a flash mob descending on a group of women. Who will stop them? Certainly not the cops. A mob can strip women in broad daylight and do whatever comes to mind. We’ve already seen it in Egypt.

If you had told Henry Ford he’d have to pay people a hundred thousand dollars a year to do unskilled labor for four hours a day, he would have laughed in your face. Now the Big Three do it as a matter of course. Mobs made them bend the knee. If a mob could do that in the days of vacuum tubes, what will be beyond reach to a mob with Ipads and Iphones?

Technology has given worthless people power they never had in the past. Now you can turn on your phone and direct thousands of people instantaneously. This will help criminals overcome the inertia and confusion that used to hinder them. And the left’s obsession with protecting freedom of expression (except for political expression by conservatives) will make it very tough to get the phones and pads shut down. Twitter refused to cooperate with the authorities during the London riots.

We’ve all heard the Craigslist stories. A man in Oregon came home to find people driving away with his belongings, because someone posted an ad saying he had left the state, and giving people permission to take everything in his home. It shows how quickly and effectively modern communications methods can unite and guide criminals. It can even put honest people to work for criminals.

Sooner or later, bright people will start making intelligent plans that will result in flash crimes the authorities will be unable to anticipate or thwart. They’ll pick a certain house or a certain neighborhood. They’ll send part of their troops to create diversions to draw police away from the real targets. Then the mobs will show up. Who will be able to repel them? Simple. Gun nuts. Get on your roof with an AK, several magazines, a case of ammunition, and a helper, and you’ll be all right. The savages will go to your neighbor’s houses. The Obama bumper stickers will look like welcome banners.

If I had no conscience, I’d be all over this. I’d be working right now to get a crew together and pick targets. Somewhere out there, people with the same idea are already at work. It won’t always be morons stealing candy from convenience stores. They’re going to realize they can rob homes, jewelry stores, banks…you name it.

It may be six months from now. It may be a year from now. But it will happen. It has to. Wait until the first smart criminal sends out a tweet, letting two thousand young men know they can have all the women they want. “Beach party tomorrow!” Once they’ve had a little success with jeans and electronics, they’ll want something more exciting.

Thank God conservatives have guns, because otherwise, we would surely be high on the to-do list. Generations of American kids have been told that their poverty was caused not by irresponsibility, but by the selfishness of people who didn’t want to share the wealth. Now many of them believe it, with a jihadist intensity. They would glory in our persecution. It would seem heroic to them. They would shoot video and put it on Youtube. “Here I am punching @ Hannity wife LULZ.” I wouldn’t be surprised if we see mob attacks on conservative celebrities who don’t have government protection. It would be very easy for a mob to get to a Rush Limbaugh or a Sarah Palin before anyone could respond.

Buy guns. Buy ammunition. Consider security cameras and motion detectors. Do it now, while the sleeping giant is still yawning and rubbing his eyes. If you’re conservative, there is a good chance you’re already set, but some will procrastinate.

Maybe our governments will find a way to cope. Maybe the National Guard will suffice, or maybe there will be increased surveillance and further corruption of our civil liberties. But I would not count on it. They do so many things badly.

I don’t think I’m overreacting. I may be a couple of years early, but unless criminals are even dumber than they think they are, they’ll figure this out eventually. And because our economy is tanking, their motivation–frustration, envy, and bigotry–will increase with time.

Man, am I ready. It’s crazy how I prepared so well, for something I never expected.

Finally on the Scoreboard

It has been a strange few days.

My church put on a production of “Aladdin” this week, and they needed Armorbearers to show up for security. Of course, I said I would serve on one of the days of the show, but since I live much farther away than most of the guys, I said I would like to be a backup. And–again, of course–we couldn’t get enough people to volunteer, so I ended up on the hook for Thursday night. And I was annoyed about it, and I said so.

On Wednesday or Thursday (I forget) I got a call from someone I hadn’t heard from in quite some time. The wife of a fellow blogger. She said her adult son was in the dumps, and they were interested in hooking him up with a church. Was I interested? YES, I was interested. It’s all about rescuing people who don’t know where to turn. Besides, if I got the son, God would have a way to get to the family.

I prayed for these people for like two years. Then I let it go. God did not.

“Coincidentally,” the Armorbearers were scheduled to have one of their “Mighty Men’s Meetings” today. We get together early in the morning and build each other up as Christian men, and we try to get new people to come. I mentioned it to him, and he was interested. I also mentioned the play, and he was up for that, too.

We went to the play, and he met a lot of my friends. He hung around while I scrambled to run security. I was the only one who showed up, so it was kind of a circus until I drafted people to help.

We had a camel in the church. It seems like we always have to have a camel. Man, they stink. And they can’t be housetrained.

Today I got up at 3:20 and drove to pick him up, and we went to the meeting. It was amazing, as usual. The Holy Spirit spoke through various people. We heard impressive testimonies. We shared some things that affected us deeply. And after a while, I realized he wasn’t in the room. It turned out he was in another room talking to a couple of friends of mine. I walked through on the way to clean up the coffee area, and I saw what was going on, and I casually mentioned the sinner’s prayer as I passed.

When I got back in there, I led us in the prayer, and then we hit him with the anointing oil and some intense prayer about other things. A friend of mine led, and he knew exactly what to pray for. He asked God to reach for the rest of the family. It was quite a spectacle. I’m the world’s most useless evangelist, so this is as close as I’ve ever come to a collar. I had help, but I was right in there.

He may be coming tomorrow, to check out the Gatekeepers, our outdoor security force. It’s the pathway to the Armorbearers.

It’s very exciting. There are some people the enemy will never stop oppressing until they get on God’s side, and once they do, they’re free to grow and succeed. That’s what’s going to happen here. We’ve helped other people. I know we can help my friend’s son. It’s just a matter of putting him in touch with the Holy Spirit, and that’s not hard at all.

Once again, I feel stupid because I resented being pressed into service. Time and time again, when I find myself inconvenienced by sudden demands I think are unreasonable, it turns out God has blessings on the other side. Had I not been scheduled to serve on Thursday, I might not have gotten him to go today.

This is not hard. Winning people without God’s direction…that’s hard. If you’ve ever seen Mormon missionaries harassing and jawing people, you know what I mean. That’s like selling cars. With the Holy Spirit guiding you, it’s like being carried around in a sedan chair, from one assignment to another. You do a little work, but not too much, because the glory has to be God’s, and if you worked hard for it, you would think too much of yourself.

There’s much more to the story than I can say here, as always. God never provides “enough.” He always gives until you don’t know what to do with the excess. Even if I were at liberty to tell everything, I would not have time to type it all.

This is what life was intended to be like. I wish every person on earth was ready to hear it, but people are like fruit. They fall when they get ripe, not before. Yelling at them is like yelling at green peaches. This is why I avoid debating about religion. When people are ready to hear, there is no debate. There is just explanation.

Some people are fed up with life without God. They have had enough. They’re willing to try anything. They’re looking for a way in. But not many Christians know where it is, so they can’t show it to other people. It’s extremely satisfying to be able to help.

I hope things work out tomorrow. This should be great.

Fresh From the Time Capsule

Someone on a forum asked for photos of my damaged Powerstat 116 autotransformer. Since I have them, I’ll put up a blog post. Here she is.

It looks so good, it’s freaking me out.

It looked perfect on Ebay. Naturally, the Postal Service was not satisfied with that, and the seller packed it so badly the boys in blue had no problem wrecking it. It must have landed on the socket side, because the rim of the socket was shattered, and the terminal board lost its lower corners.

I have been dithering about keeping it or sending it back. I am told the plastic stuff is Bakelite, which is very hard to mend, supposedly. I got a lame response from the seller, so I tried to put it back together with super glue for plastic. Surprisingly, it worked. Here you can see the mend. The cracks are highlighted because there is excess glue that needs to be taken off.

I couldn’t make myself give up on it, because it’s so strange to see a product roughly 60 years old, looking this good. And I paid about 20% of the cost of a new one.

Actually, there are no new ones. The models that came after this have three prongs. I can get a replacement terminal board, but they don’t stock these old 2-hole sockets. I’m going to have to modify a Home Depot receptacle and cram it in there. I hope the machine still looks pretty when I’m done. I shouldn’t care, but come on. That’s a neat-looking variac.

Antisocial Media

The seeds of violent anti-Semitism have been sown. The economy is heading down the toilet. Jewish names like Madoff, Stearns, Salomon, and Geithner have been associated with financial misconduct and incompetence. Entitlements are going to dry up, simply because the money won’t be there. Flash mob riots have given the leeches and worthless people a new tool they can use to overcome the police and impose their will. And most Jews live in urban areas and refuse to own guns. How long have people like Louis Farrakhan been telling the poor that Jews run the world? I promise you, there are millions of people in the US who see Jewish houses as big pinatas full of stolen loot.

The mobs are hitting Europe right now, but I’m sure they’ll be here before long. Why wouldn’t they be? We have a sea of spoiled individuals who live off the government and who believe their low economic status was caused by conspiracies and cliques. Even our President tells them this; he wants them to think corporate jets caused their poverty. They think they’re entitled to commit crimes, including personal violence, because they’ve been systematically cheated. They have computers. They have cell phones. They have Twitter and Facebook. Add it up, and it spells “time bomb.”

I realized this last night. I don’t see any journalists or government officials taking the phenomenon seriously; as usual, they’re behind the curve. I felt I should put up a blog post so at least a few people would be aware of the threat.

Obviously, Jews are not the only ones at risk. Anyone who lives near a big city and owns a home will be a target. If you don’t own weapons, this would be a good day to start buying them.

As I’ve noted before, one reason Sodom and Gomorrah were burned in a rain of flaming sulphur was that they had a practice of committing mob crimes. A mob would fall on a business, and each criminal would take something small, and the business would be ruined. This is what happened in Lot’s time. Jesus said it would be “as the days of Lot” when he returned, and suddenly, we’re seeing the same type of crime. He said it would be “as the days of Noah,” when God was infuriated by sexual immorality and marriage between humans and animals, and suddenly we have a President who supports gay marriage.

Look out.

I think the Holy Spirit is warning me, so I’m trying to warn others. I have a long pattern of being right about things like this, and God’s record is considerably better than mine, so think before you dismiss me.